Mental Health & Others

United Families & Friends Campaign

Self harm cases in women’s prisons reaches record high

Domiciliary Prisonsource: PrisonPhone
published: 23 April 2021

With the effects of COVID-19 it has caused many prisoners to be separated from their families and loved ones even more so than before.

Having more than a year apart from seeing their families on a face to face basis has caused a serious impact on some inmates, seeing a record high in self harming cases across some of the women’s prisons.

Self harm amongst female prisoners has increased rapidly.  A spokesman said “Many women haven’t seen their families in person for over a year, and are confined to their cells for up to 23 hours a day”. The crisis of the Coronavirus has created a number of incidents reaching a record high, new data shows.

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Tippa Naphtali

Police restraint contributed to Leon Briggs death, jury finds

Leon Briggs vigil

source: The Guardian
published: 12 March 2021

The way in which police officers restrained a man with drug-induced psychosis “more than minimally” contributed to his death in Luton in 2013, an inquest jury in Milton Keynes has found by unanimous verdict.

Leon Briggs, a 39-year-old father of two of mixed ethnic background, was a lorry driver and also taught computer skills to older people. His family described him as “a loving brother and father, caring and genuine”.

He was detained under the Mental Health Act and taken to Luton police station on 4 November 2013. Briggs died about two hours later at Luton & Dunstable hospital as a result of “amphetamine intoxication in association with prone restraint and prolonged struggling”, with a secondary cause of heart disease, the senior coroner Emma Whitting has previously said.

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United Families & Friends Campaign

Mzee Mohammed was an innocent victim of mental illness and knife crime

Mzee Mohammed
Mzee Mohammed

source: Liverpool Echo
published: 15 December 2019

In the hours before the death of 18-year-old Mzee Mohammed Daley , his worried dad described “seeing the fear in my boy’s eyes.”

Mzee , who had long struggled with mental health difficulties, was at the start of a terrifying descent into the psychotic episode that killed him, on the warm evening of July 13, 2016, in Liverpool ONE shopping centre.

For three years speculation and rumour surrounded the very public death of the student, who dreamed of opening a Jamaican-style eatery in the city.

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